An important and exceptionally rare set of four huanghuali folding chairs, Jiaoyi

16th/17th centuryEach with a narrow crest-rail supported on slender, gracefully curved rear posts flanking the splats with chilong roundels and carved with cusped narrow flanges on the sides, with a stringed seat between the front and back stretchers, the hinged rounded square-section legs terminating in rectangular base stretchers, the footrests mounted with an openwork iron plaque with a design of lozenges, fitted cushions.Each 94cm (37in) high x 58.5cm (23in) wide x 81cm (31 7/8in) deep. (4).

Footnotes

十六/十七世紀 黃花梨團龍紋交椅 四張成堂

Provenance: Francesco Maria, Marchese Taliani de Marchio (1887 - 1968), Grand Officer of the Italian Crown, Commander of the Order of St Maurice and Lazarus, and Commander of the Order of Pius IX (Ordine Piano), and his wife Archduchess Maragaretha d'Austria Toscana, Marchesa Taliani de Marchio (1894 – 1986). According to the collection inventory list, acquired in Beijing.

It is interesting to note that though devoting an entire article on the subject of the development of folding chairs, the reason Dr Ecke did not include the set of folding chairs in his seminal publication Chinese Domestic Furniture, Beijing, 1944, is that he considered these chairs to belong to an official dignitary category and therefore outside the range of 'domestic' furniture; see the book review of Ecke's Chinese Domestic Furniture by Eleanor v.E. Consten, published in Monumenta Serica, vol.10, 1945, pp.437-441, p.439.

Marchese Taliani was a distinguished Italian diplomat who lived through major historical upheavals of the first half of the 20th century, events whose impact affect all to this day. His first diplomatic appointment was to Berlin in 1912; followed by Constantinople in 1913, where during the First World War he negotiated an agreement for the protection of Italian citizens and interests in the (soon to be demise) Ottoman Empire. From 1916 to 1919 he served in St Petersburg, and under the privilege of diplomatic immunity was in a unique position to observe and chronicle first-hand the October Revolution, its day by day development, the subsequent fall of Tsarist Russia and the establishment of the Soviet Republic; from 1919 he served in Rome as Secretary of State for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; with later assignments to London (1921 - 1923) and again to Constantinople (1924 – 1928), this time as the Republic of Turkey; from 1929 - 1930 he was in Rome as Head of Protocol of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in 1932 he was appointed Italian Ambassador to the Netherlands; in 1938 he was appointed Ambassador to China, where he remained until 1946; and his last diplomatic appointment was in 1951 as Ambassador to Spain until 1952.

Sent to China in 1938 as Ambassador to the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing, he became an acute - and far from humourless, despite the hardships of everyday life - front line eye-witness of the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which the Japanese forces captured the capital and attacked Shanghai. When Mussolini recognised Wang Jingwei's Japanese puppet government, Taliani presented his credentials to him. On 8 September 1943, having refused to swear allegiance to the Italian Social Republic (Republic of Salò), he and his wife, the Archduchess Margaretha d'Austria Toscana (1894 - 1986), were arrested and interned by the Japanese in a concentration camp near Shanghai, where they remained for two years until the end of the war. After the end of hostilities, the new government of Alcide De Gasperi reconfirmed him as Ambassador to China until 1946.

A number of masterpieces of classical Chinese furniture in the collection have been published by the eminent scholar Dr Gustav Ecke in his seminal book Chinese Domestic Furniture, Beijing, 1944, as well as Dr Ecke's article devoted to folding chairs, 'Wandlungen Des Faltstuhls: Bemerkungen zur Geschichte der Euraischen Stuhlform' ('Development of the Folding Chair: Observations on Euroasian Chair Forms'), which was published in Monumenta Serica, vol.9, 1944.

Many of the purchase invoices survive, providing an important documentation of Chinese art dealers active in Shanghai and Beijing between 1938 and 1946. The majority of the invoices are dated to between December 1938 and July 1943, with a significant gap until April 1946, explained by Marchese and Marchesa Taliani's internment by the Japanese. The long list of dealers demonstrates the vibrant Chinese art market in Shanghai and Beijing in the late 1930s and early 1940s; this list includes the following:

The important set of four huanghuali folding chairs which may be considered a masterpiece of Ming dynasty furniture making, is exceedingly rare in form and type, with no other identical single chair, or indeed a set, known to have been published. Ming dynasty folding chairs were made in two main forms: horseshoe-back shape, of which there are many extant examples, and in square back form, of which very few survive. Of the square back form two main types are known – without arms as the present lot – and with arms, also known as 'Drunken lord's chair'. Dr Gustav Ecke in his important article 'Wandlungen Des Faltstuhls: Bemerkungen zur Geschichte der Euraischen Stuhlform' ('Development of the Folding Chair: Observations on Euroasian Chair Forms'), ibid., pp.36, concludes the set of chairs are Ming dynasty in date.

Folding chairs such as the present lot would have belonged to the elite and used at home, in the garden and when travelling, which would also explain their relative scarcity due to wear (particularly when made from softwood). These were used for formal and informal occasions, when on military campaigns or enjoying leisurely pursuits. Despite their rarity today, these square back folding chairs often appeared in illustrated Ming dynasty novels and were illustrated in the late Ming pictorial encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui (三才圖會) as yi die zhe (椅疊折, literally 'folding chair'); see a related Ming dynasty folding chair but in softwood with a yokeback top rail which belonged to King Philip II of Spain (1527 - 1598) and is still in the palace of El Escorial.

For Ming dynasty variations of square-back huanghuali folding chairs, see Grace Wu Bruce, Living with Ming - The Lu Ming Shi Collection, 2000, pp.88-89, no.16 (with yokeback top rail and without a central splat); two but with arms of the 'Drunken lord's' type, are illustrated by S.Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkeley, California, 2001, p.70, fig.5.9, and R.H.Ellsworth et al, Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, no.26; and a fourth example with a yokeback, is illustrated in R.H.Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ching Dynasties, New York, 1971, pl.26.

Most extant examples of Ming dynasty folding chairs made from huanghuali are of the horseshoe shape type; see for example one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Huanghuali Furniture, Beijing, 2008, pl.8; and another, with a similarly shaped splat back, dated as Yuan dynasty, illustrated by Wang Shixiang, Classic Chinese Furniture – Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, Bangkok, 1986, pl.57; for further examples see S.Handler, ibid., pp.60-71, (compare the closely related chilong decoration on the front seat stretcher, the foot stand and edged back splat on a folding armchair, Ming dynasty, from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, Renaissance California and the example from the collection of John W. Gruber, New York, figs.5.1 and 5.4).

See a huanghuali folding horseshow-back chair, 16th/17th century, which was sold at Sotheby's New York, 19-20 March 2007, lot 312, and another which was sold at Christie's New York, 16 October 2001, lot 254.

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